抄録
This article explores how the British government agreed in the summer of 1922 to fund their debts owed to the American government during the First World War. Since the U.S. entered the war on the Allied side in April 1917 until June 1919, British debts to the U.S. subsequently swelled to approximately $4.3 billion. After the war, the American government firmly insisted on swift repayment by the Allies of their war debts; and they suggested that U.S. economic assistance for European reconstruction was not to come until the debtor countries settled their debt questions with the U.S.
Nevertheless, the British government continued to avoid funding their debts since 1920. Claiming on a general cancellation of all the inter-Allied debts, the Lloyd George government declined even to acknowledge their financial obligations. Chief Cabinet members such as the Prime Minister David Lloyd George and the War Secretary Winston Churchill were concerned with the impact on the domestic economy (and public opinion) of expending a vast sum of money; they also wished the Americans to take a more lenient position over the war debts.
A sea change in the British policy of the war debt question came in 1922, when European relations reached its nadir in regard to German reparations. The French sought to enforce on Germany the strict execution of the reparations obligations of the Treaty of Versailles; meanwhile, the Germans, undergoing hyperinflation, persistently demanded a moratorium due to its chaotic economic condition at home. Then, from May to June 1922, the Chancellor of the Exchequer Sir Robert Horne and the British Ambassador at Washington Sir Auckland Geddes convinced the Cabinet that such deadlock in the Continent did require some external assistance from the U.S., the largest creditor nation, and they pressed for an early Anglo-American war debt settlement in anticipation of some U.S. commitment to the European problem. Around the same time, the U.S. Ambassador at London George Harvey assured Lloyd George and Churchill that a debt settlement would lead to Anglo-American cooperation to tackle problems in Europe. In July 1922, the Lloyd George government finally consented to dispatch a British delegation to Washington for starting negotiations on conditions of repaying their debt to the U.S. After the British determined to fund their debts to the Americans, Anglo-American relations again stood on a sound footing, which could be a stimulus to their joint effort over German reparations toward the subsequent Dawes Plan of 1924.
